Timeline

I wrote this in the fall of 2017, but is set in the future after the Jason and Drew reveal has been settled.

Inspiration

I’m kind of irritated Franco got to die as a good guy when he’s literally the worst.

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Elizabeth Webber knocked hesitantly and waited for the door to open, pondering exactly what she would say. How she would even explain the insanity of why she was here.

And why she couldn’t quite settle the nausea in her stomach because if the results were not wrong…

Sam opened it and squinted. “Hey. Elizabeth. What are you doing here?” She stepped back to allow her to enter the penthouse. Elizabeth did so, always marveling at how different this place looked than the first she had been here—God, twenty years ago. How was that even possible? Sam and Drew had stayed in the penthouse after everything had shaken out the year before and Jason had taken a smaller apartment downtown, closer to the warehouse.

“You remember the project Jake worked on for Christmas?” Elizabeth asked as Sam closed the door. “He sent for all those kits.”

“Yeah, the genealogy project.” Sam nodded. “He wanted to see how everyone connected now that…” She sighed. “With Drew. Did he get the results back?”

“Yeah.” Elizabeth drew out her tablet with the Ancestry app was already up. “He connected everyone’s kit to their profile this online tree—Spinelli helped him. But…” She handed Sam the tablet.

Sam frowned down at the screen. “There’s no…” She raised her eyes. “Danny’s DNA isn’t…it doesn’t show…” She swallowed. “It doesn’t show a match. Between Jake and Danny. Just…Danny and Scout. And Jake and Scout.”

“Because they have the same mother, and Jason and Drew’s DNA is the same.” Elizabeth closed her eyes. “Jake was upset when he got the results but he doesn’t…he doesn’t know the implications. He just thinks the test was wrong. And with everything that’s happened with Drew and Jason…he’s been finding it hard to trust any of us when we tell him things. This…he doesn’t understand what it means that Danny’s DNA isn’t…”

“It’s a mistake,” Sam said flatly. She handed the tablet back. “We did the test wrong. We’ll do it again—” She pressed a fist to her mouth. “Oh. God. It’s wrong. It has to be wrong.”

“It has to be wrong.” Elizabeth nodded. “Because…it means if it’s not—”

“And it’s not possible. Because—” Sam scrubbed her hands over her face. “He tested everyone. All the Quartermaines he could find, right? All of your family. And the Spencers.”

“Yeah, everything else showed up…as expected. He, Cam, and Aidan have the same mother. He shows up as linked to Scout because Jason and Drew are—were—identical twins.” Elizabeth looked away. “Sam, it doesn’t—it doesn’t make sense why this is the only—”

“I never questioned the results,” Sam murmured. “I should have, but I wanted it to be the truth. And he looks like Jason, doesn’t he?” Her dark eyes found hers, desperate. “He looks like Jason. And Jake.”

“I know. I asked Jake not to say anything for now. I told him I’d contact the company. I’d do something. We’d get it fixed.” Elizabeth swallowed. “Sam…I have to know. I have to know if it’s a lie. If I’ve—” Had done it again. Trusted another sociopath. Oh, God.

“Yeah.” Sam looked at her. “God, Elizabeth. We’ve all—we’ve all believed him. Let him around—” She turned away. “My mother has the kids out at some circus.  I was supposed to be working.” She made her way the sofa and sat down. “It can’t be true.”

“Do you have anything of Danny’s?” Elizabeth asked softly. She drew out a plastic bag with Jake’s toothbrush. “We can take it to the hospital and run the test for the same markers.” She drew out a second bag. “And we can run this.”

Sam stared at the second toothbrush and swallowed. “You still have his toothbrush?”

“He didn’t take everything when we broke up.” Elizabeth sighed. “I don’t know if it’s any good, so maybe we could get something from Drew.”

“Yeah. Those…those are quick, right? We could…we could know today.” Their eyes met. “I have to know. Now that it’s…Oh, God.” She got to her feet. “It’s not going to change anything,” she said, fiercely. “Not for Danny. Or Jason.”

“Or Jake.” Elizabeth put the bags back in her purse. “Danny is his brother. And he’s Jason’s son. Drew’s stepson. It doesn’t change a thing.” Except it would change everything.

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Brad Cooper had only blinked at them when Elizabeth had asked him to run the test quickly and quietly, but he wasn’t an idiot. He took the four toothbrushes and promised them results within a few hours.

And then they went to the cafeteria to wait.

“It was supposed to be over,” Sam murmured. “It was supposed to be done.” Her hands tightened around her coffee. “It was all so horrible finding out Drew wasn’t Jason. That Helena was still…torturing us all. Getting his memories back. Forgiving myself for not—for not seeing. Breaking Jason’s heart to stay with Drew.”

“Seeing the disgust in Jason’s eyes when he saw I was dating Franco,” Elizabeth murmured. “For him…it was all the same. He hadn’t…he didn’t know.” Or had he been right all along? She’d walked out on Franco when his jealousy and distrust had been too much for her to handle, and she was proud of that.

But if…if Franco had been lying about Sam all along…had he been lying about Michael? Had he just…lied and lied and lied? How desperate was she to believe him at all?

“We were supposed to be moving on,” Sam continued. “Figuring out a way to make it all work as a family.” She closed her eyes.

“Jake and Jason were just….getting closer. He was starting to see Jason as his father.” And to see Jason’s eyes when he’d realized Jake was alive—to get that moment she thought she’d stolen by lying about Drew’s identity.

Elizabeth’s phone vibrated and she looked at it. The caller ID was Brad.

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Sam stared down at the results in growing horror and swallowed. “Oh. God.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Danny and Jake don’t share any DNA markers,” Brad said, with a bit of regret. “Danny’s markers match this sample—and Jake’s matches this. They have completely different fathers and mothers.”

“Oh, God.”

Elizabeth took Sam’s by the elbow and steered her to a chair. She knew what it was like for it to hit you—to know that you had been raped. To feel it in your bones.

And Elizabeth had brought Sam’s rapist into their lives. Lived with him. Loved him.

“We should call Dante,” Elizabeth said after a moment. “Because…we can prove it now.”

Sam looked at her, her dark eyes dilated in shock. “Prove…Oh. Oh, God.”

The paper slid from her hand as she bolted for the door and the bathroom.

“I’m sorry,” Brad offered.

“Thanks,” Elizabeth picked up the papers, her fingers trembling. “I don’t know what…Thank you.” She tucked them into her purse and followed Sam to the bathroom.

She could hear the retching. The tears. “Sam…let me call Drew. You need him.”

She heard the sink run and then the door opened. Sam opened it, her eyes bloodshot, her mascara a black inky mess streaking down her cheeks. “Yeah. Yeah, I need him. And we should call Jason because we can’t keep—he needs to know.” She stepped out of the bathroom. “And let’s…let’s call Dante.” She closed her eyes. “And I want my mother. Can you call her? I can’t seem to—”

“Yeah, let’s…” Elizabeth knew Patrick’s old office hadn’t been used since he’d left the hospital two years earlier and it was just down the hall from the lab. She led Sam there and settled her on the sofa.

“I woke up this morning and everything made sense,” Sam murmured. She put her face in her hands, resting her elbows on her knees. “I have a husband that I love. Two children that are everything to me. And you know, I guess I still have those things. But it just feels like it’s all gone. Like I don’t understand it.”

Elizabeth took out her cell phone and made three quick calls, asking Drew, Jason, and Alexis to meet them at the penthouse. And then…called Dante to ask him to meet them in about a hour.

“I don’t know what to do next.” Sam looked at her blankly. “What do I do?”

“You put one foot in front of the other,” Elizabeth murmured. “And you keep doing that until you look up one day, and it’s behind you. And you hope like hell that day comes fast.”